Sugar: The Bitter Truth

Milk sting? That is crazy, but I googled milk sting operation and got a ton of hits. Apparently Missouri is milk sting central.

Back to HFCS, this is not due to capitalism--just the opposite. US makers use HFCS due to sugar price supports which makes sugar much more expensive in the US than in other countries.

The US Sugar industry has great political clout (w/ both parties) and uses it to distort the market. This is not capitalism, rather gov't intervention into the economy. Exactly the approach favored by liberals.

lease wrote:

Runningart2004 wrote:

About 100% of Asians are lactose intolerant. 75% of the world is lactose intolerant. The sugars in milk, lactose and galactose, we are just not made to digest after infancy.

Alan, I like almost all of your posts. But, as is so often the case, different things work for different people--with regard to diet, as with regard to training.

Some peoples in South Asia, East Africa, and Northern Europe have evolved (different!) mutations that permit them to digest lactose past infancy.

Good point. My wife and I took the FoodStats Antibody Assessment by US BioTek (www.usbiotek.com). We are both "white" of mixed "whatever". We are both Gleuten-Free-Vegans-With-Meat according to the test. It also identified other foods, such as almonds, that we have an intolerance to. The wide has a great intolerance to oysters, for example yet I don't.

So... for all those that have big s**ts after drinking milk, go ahead and keep drinking it. I will see you after my shower when you cross the finish line after our race :)

"Everyone, even the fatties" [quote]

I stopped reading after this. I was laughing too hard.

lease wrote:

Runningart2004 wrote:

About 100% of Asians are lactose intolerant. 75% of the world is lactose intolerant. The sugars in milk, lactose and galactose, we are just not made to digest after infancy.

Alan, I like almost all of your posts. But, as is so often the case, different things work for different people--with regard to diet, as with regard to training.

Some peoples in South Asia, East Africa, and Northern Europe have evolved (different!) mutations that permit them to digest lactose past infancy.

Does not mean that mutation is helpful to them.

Does someone want to explain why humans today are living longer than ever before... We must be doing something right. Btw if you can digest lactose you can eat all of it you want. It's simply a matter of whether or not you possess the enzyme lactase.... Humans got that not so long ago, but it's an evolutionary adapdation, just like your eyes.

high fructose corn syrup is not good for you.

consumers are starting to wake up to this fact.

mercola.com has some good articles. As well as other sites.

Chocolate cake is good, but if you eat it every day, something is gonna happen...

there's a lot of misinformation in this thread. A major one was RunningArt's commet that humans are meant to eat at milk past infancy. Someone else posted that we're not meant to drink cow's milk at all.

How is drinking cow's milk any different than say, eating a carrot? It's not. Indeed, plants do a much better job of manufacturing toxic chemicals than a cow. Why the world is green is a major theme in ecology and one of the answers is because plants do such a good job resisting being eaten (by producing all the toxic chemicals).

We have an enzyme, lactase, that digests lactose sugar in milk. We obviously need this because we are a mammal and nurse, like all other mammals, but the enzyme isn't so different from the other disachharideases that almost all organisms on earth have. We didn't evolve lactase recently - like I said, all mammals have the gene. Primitively, the gene was "turned off" after weaning, meaning the enzyme wasn't made. So if you are lactose intolerant, its not because you don't have lactase its because you aren't making it any more. Several pops of humans independently evolved the mutation that kept this gene from being turned off - that is, lactase continues to be made after weaning. It is very well documented that this evolved in response to raising dairy animals (and drinking milk past weaning). So many of us of northern european descent are actually "made" to drink cow's milk.

Sorry - I meant to say RunningArt's comment that we are *not* meant to drink milk past infancy

tl;dr (dw) -

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gl9vZYj-aJ4

vs.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mqIpAyHJ2ws&feature=fvw

theone wrote:

Does someone want to explain why humans today are living longer than ever before... We must be doing something right. Btw if you can digest lactose you can eat all of it you want. It's simply a matter of whether or not you possess the enzyme lactase.... Humans got that not so long ago, but it's an evolutionary adapdation, just like your eyes.

What? Your eyes? That's ridiculous. Just because some people have a mutation that allows them to digest lactose, does not mean it is beneficial. Perhaps lactose wasn't meant to be digested for a reason... that reason being that it is unhealthy, as it was meant for cows to consume, not humans. There are two sides to this story, so don't immediately assume that you are right.

middle, where do you get the idea that, just because you CAN drink cow's milk, you SHOULD? Would you care to back up this implied assertion?

Lustig has a case, albeit overstated and containing misinformation (what a strange performance!).

Fructose the Poison - chronic ingestion of fructose results in leptin resistance, which leads to being hungry even when you've eaten enough. You then eat more, making you fat. Poison? If you like.

Fructose the Calorie - too much fructose, like too much glucose, starch, fat, protein or ethanol (not a carb), will make you fat (calories-in still equals calories-out, Lustig). Fructose is a carbohydrate found in fruit and vegetables that at low concentrations stimulates glycogen formation in the liver (any marathoners out there?) and at high concentrations is converted into fat. For people who go through periods of excess and starvation, e.g. nomads finding berries during season, conversion of excess fructose into glycogen and fat is an excellent way of storing the energy from those berries for leaner times.

hcfs is used in the us because subsidies make corn absurdly cheap and tariffs keep sugar expensive.

King Author wrote:

hcfs is used in the us because subsidies make corn absurdly cheap and tariffs keep sugar expensive.

This is correct. Tim Carney has a good chapter about it in his 2006 book 'The Big Ripoff.' Carney shows the clout of the sugar industry with an amusing anecdote drawn from the Ken Starr report.

In the Starr report there were several occations when Bill Clinton took calls from congress-critters while frolicking, but on one notable occasion, a call came in of such gravity that Clinton sent Monica out of the room. The call was from a sugar-industry mogul.

Swedish fish are hfcs-free. Eat 'em up!

King Author wrote:

hcfs is used in the us because subsidies make corn absurdly cheap and tariffs keep sugar expensive.

This is correct. That reform of this subsidy or the insurance cartel wasn't included in the "healthcare reform" bill defies belief and alludes to the primarily politically-driven nature of the bill.

As for the comment that plants manufacture "toxic" chemicals as a natural defense mechansism to predators... isn't that a good thing??? And particularly when contrasted with man-made pesticides that we spray all over them, which are now being linked to ADHD?? Once again, I'm shocked.

I once read somewhere in a scientific journal that the hottest peppers in the world evolved to become spicier as a way of developing "innate" immunity to their natural parasites. In my mind, that means hot peppers are probably very good for humans, immunity, and inflammation. And, of course, there's plenty of anecdotal scientific corroboration of just such an assertion.

Before you guys go over the deep end about fructose, read this:

http://www.alanaragonblog.com/2010/01/29/the-bitter-truth-about-fructose-alarmism/#comment-1092

Obesity/health changes are very complex, yet we consistantly make the mistake of simplifying it to a crazy degree, looking for that one magic pill. Instead of facing the facts that calorie consumption has increased and exercise has decreased.

It's kind of funny, because the doctor talks about logical fallacies and how we got obsessed with LDL and fat. Now he's shifting that obsession to carbs/fructose.

I think his presentation is directed a little too much at the Harlem crowd. As in, it may make them go think Atkins was a great idea. All he was saying is that Atkins and other diets have a higher percentage non-carbo, so it usually means less sugar. The real goal is to have a low fast diet and manage your carbohydrates without overdoing it with the bad sugars. I hope people are smart enough to understand that.